f God."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Marjorie, enthusiastically.

"He had another long time to wait, too," said Linnet.

"Yes, he had hard times all along," almost sighed Miss Prudence.

Forty years old did not mean to her that her hard times were all over.

"But he had such a good time with the boys," said Marjorie, who never
could see the dark side of anything. "Just to think of _dates_ telling us
such a beautiful thing."

"That's all you hate, dates and punctuation," Linnet declared; "but I
can't see the use of ever so many other things."

"If God thought it worth while to make the earth and people it and
furnish it and govern it with laws, don't you think it worth your poor
little while to learn what he has done?" queried Miss Prudence, gently.

"Oh!" exclaimed Linnet, "is _that_ it?"

"Just it," said Miss Prudence, smiling, "and some day I will go over with
you each study by itself and show you how it will educate you and help
you the better to do something he asks you to do."

"Oh, how splendid!" cried Linnet. "Before I go to school, so the books
won't seem hard and dry?"

"Yes, any day that you will come to me. Marjorie may come too, even
though she loves to study."

"I wonder if you can find any good in Natural Philosophy," muttered
Linnet, "and in doing the examples in it. And in remembering the signs
of the Zodiac! Mr. Holmes makes us learn everything; he won't let us
skip."

"He is a fine teacher, and you might have had, if you had been so minded,
a good preparation for your city school."

"I haven't," said Linnet. "If it were not for seeing the girls and
learning how to be like city girls, I would rather stay home."

"Perhaps that knowledge would not improve you. What then?"

"Why, Miss Prudence!" exclaimed Marjorie, "don't you think we country
girls are away behind the age?"

"In the matter of dates! But you need not be. With such a teacher as you
have you ought to do as well as any city girl of your age. And there's
always a course of reading by yourself."

"It isn't always," laughed Linnet, "it is only for the studiously
disposed."

"I was a country girl, and when I went to the city to school I did not
fail in my examination."

"Oh, _you_!" cried Linnet.

"I see no reason why you, in your happy, refined, Christian home, with
all the sweet influences of your healthful, hardy lives, should not be as
perfectly the lady as any girl I know."

Marjorie clapped her hands. Oh, if Hollis m